


Faded Wisps In The Air

by callmedok



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, M/M, POV Carlos (Welcome to Night Vale), Pre-Episode: e033 Cassette, Smoking, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2019-11-04 06:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17893634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmedok/pseuds/callmedok
Summary: Carlos is a stress smoker, and has to pick up a new pack. When Cecil wants to borrow a cigarette, well. It's only polite to share.





	Faded Wisps In The Air

**Author's Note:**

> Many moons ago in the fall of 2013, when I was young and didn't let a 18+ warning stop me for I was full of hubris, there existed the Nightvale Community Kink Meme. And I, for the foolish man I was, entered it's embrace and began to fill out some prompts.
> 
> What you see before you is one such prompt, written while all we still had was mysterious doubles and sand storms that couldn't be explained. We got Carlos smoking, and a undescribed Cecil who dresses mainly from a thriftstore.
> 
> Enjoy this time capsule of older writing.

Some part of him still being analytical takes note of the fact that the cash register has teeth and is snarling, the cashier has a single eye in her forehead clashing heavily with a bright blue streak in her hair, and that robotic hand is far superior to any medical knowledge he has heard about.  
  
However the other part of him craving the taste of smoke and nicotine simply digs the (completely wrong, completely different money, how the hell is the eye on it _fucking blinking-_ ) necessary crumpled bills out of his coat pocket and shoving it into a metallic hand.  
  
He's been trying to cut down, but the sheer insanity, the pure wonder of this place-  
  
He needs the brief rush of nicotine to his system to keep his feet firmly planted on the ground (metaphorically), needs this brief indulgence to even dream of slogging into the next day.  
  
(Perhaps even literally, considering the recent problem with an outbreak of muck monsters breeding.  
  
Mud was everywhere, and by whatever deity smiled upon this ball of water hurtling in the pitch black of the void he was terrified of the noises coming from the darker parts of the shadows.  
  
He may also be kinda irrationally worried that he's stepping in someone's kids and he ends up covered in muck monster juice trying to do his job.  
  
Sometimes it's hard to do actual work.)  
  
He honestly does sigh in relief when the cashier hands him the package he's come to know and love desperately, the one that's black with the town logo and the Council's warning of prolonged usage resulting in facial tentacles.  
  
(He takes the risk anyway, because he _needs_ his fix, and Cecil would still call him handsome and beautiful.  
  
...When had that become such a comforting thought?)  
  
He shares a brief nod with Cathy her name tag says, and leaves hands shaking with the anticipation of the sheer bliss that will occur as the smoke curls into his lungs, as the nicotine will hit his blood stream.  
  
He doesn't waste time after getting them though.  
  
He leans against his car as he breaks the silvery wax seal, and absently makes a note to test it later to make sure it really is wax.  
  
Then it's time to dig up the lighter his older brother gave him before college, the one with dents and scratches and  
  
_"Best of luck little bro. Remember how I taught you to set fire to things properly and remember to-"_  
  
The one which had somehow survived Night Vale this long.  
  
(He discovered soon after showing up here the cigarettes were different. Tan and white was black and violet. Despite the dark blue hue, the contents was tobacco.  At least, that was the closest thing the substance could be compared to.)  
  
His fingers close around the lighter, and he lifts one of those odd cigarettes to his lips before taking the chance to light it.  
  
He inhales, and the tip lights up with blue and dark green hued embers instead of orange.  
  
(He should know, he tested it.)  
  
It feels like every muscle that he didn't know had been tensed relaxes, like he doesn't have to worry about stress reducing his stomach to shreds, like he maybe can make a little sense out of chaos.  
  
The smoke burns slightly, but in a pleasant way before he exhales.  
  
(He couldn't ever figure out how to do the dragon thing his grandma and brother could. He and his brother joked that he smoked like mom, before-)  
  
He amuses himself by watching the shapes that may or may not be forming out of the strands and wisps of dying smoke, and then he notices the person coming towards him.  
  
He honestly doesn't care that it might be an unfriendly, he still remembered what his brother taught him about fighting and how to play dirty.  
  
(There were advantages to looking like someone who wouldn't hurt a fly, like someone who hadn't out of boredom figured out how much force was needed to break a neck. He had to answer to the forensics teacher about the body with a now-broken neck who'd originally died of organ failure later, but at the time it was worth it.)  
  
Slowly the shape forms itself into something vaguely familiar, and he can't help but grin a little.  
  
Cecil looks slightly awkward, always holds himself in such a way he looks smaller than he is, and wears bow ties and thrift-store dress shirts that are permanently rumpled and a hoodie outside of the station covered in symbols and made of fabric he can barely begin to identify.  
  
He also smiles a certain crooked way that is oddly endearing despite the almost stalkerish way he acts on occasion.  
  
"Mind sharing? Can't smoke at the Station, and Dana snagged my last one."the man in the hoodie asks, and the one leaning against his car smiles a bit as he takes a drag.  
  
Then, without a word, he takes the cigarette from his mouth and offers it to Cecil.  
  
Somehow the two end up leaning against Carlos' car sharing a cigarette between the two of them, with brief sly grins and vague flirtatious looks exchanged.  
  
And as the exhale, as if this moment is purely theirs, the smoke twists and writhes into vague shapes even as it fades into the night air.  
  
(Then one of them leaves over, captures the other's mouth with their own, and tastes nicotine and smoke and faint traces of coffee and things feel like for once they're slipping into place.  
  
It feels less like they're screaming and ranting into the void, unable to force things to fit.  
  
That's a good feeling.)

**Author's Note:**

> Here's where the original prompt/posting was: http://nightvalecommunitykink.dreamwidth.org/822.html?thread=258614#cmt258614


End file.
